We're going to have three presenters: the Canadian Institute of Forestry; the Construction Sector Council, and Rosemary Sparks; and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We'd like to welcome all of them. We also have Bev Buckway, the mayor of the city of Whitehorse, as well as the chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Northern and Remote Forum; and Erin Hogan, a city council member .

Welcome to our committee. We'll have each of you present, and we'll start with Mr. John Pineau.

On behalf of the membership of the Canadian Institute of Forestry—l'Institut forestier du Canada—and the Canadian Forestry Association, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. In my capacity as executive director, I am representing over 2,000 forest professionals and practitioners from across Canada. Our non-profit voluntary organizations work actively with all who have an interest in maintaining the health of Canadian forests and promoting a better understanding of forestry.

Our institute's mission is to promote excellence in forest stewardship and sustainability, based on the application of sound science and research. We also proactively organize and deliver opportunities for continuing education and professional development to all Canadian forest professionals and practitioners to help them maintain their competency. Through the Canadian Forestry Association, we promote forest education and public awareness with programs such as National Forest Week, Envirothon, and the Forest Capital of Canada. Our activities are driven by our passion for forests and our desire to help people in a constructive and positive manner.

Canada's publicly owned forests are unique in the world, as vast renewable resources controlled by the provincial governments, but generally leased out to private corporations or cooperative groups of companies. This system has produced many benefits for our citizens, including the creation of high-paying jobs; access for a variety of recreational uses; and annually, a positive balance of trade. However, to continue to receive these and other benefits, we need to ensure that we protect the ecological integrity of these forests, that is, to ensure the ecological functions of the forests are not impaired. The acceptance of sustainable forests as the key concept in the national forest strategy demonstrates that Canadians want their forests to maintain biological diversity, carbon storage, water regulation, and the other myriad benefits we obtain from them.

Forests can and must continue to play a major role in Canada's future economic, social, and environmental solutions. The majority—or some 90%—of Canada's forests are publicly owned. Investment in these resources must be considered a long-term environmental investment, with significant corollary social and economic benefits. Despite current global economic uncertainty and the underutilization of forests in many jurisdictions of what can be sustainably harvested, governments should look to investing in the renewal and maintenance of our publicly owned forests. This would immediately employ people across Canada—especially those living in small, remote, rural, forest-dependent communities—to grow, plant, and tend young forests. In the longer term, this investment would create wood products, bioenergy, and habitats for wildlife, as well as sequester carbon. Science is telling us that good forest management can have a net positive impact on carbon sequestration and, possibly, the mitigation of climate change.

Harvested areas, as well as areas depleted by natural causes such as fire, wind, insects, and disease—which is substantial, but varies annually—should be considered for more rigorous, large-scale regeneration programs. We recommend the development of sound plans for areas where forest regeneration is required, and the development of a national seed crop forecasting system to assist in the timing of site preparation and tending operations. Such an investment would be beneficial to many remote rural communities. Our members are also seriously concerned that Canada is losing its silvicultural and forest regeneration capacity and knowledge base, both of which are well-respected throughout the world. Thoughtful and strategic investment will help to reverse this situation. Our institute's recently announced collaboration with like-minded forestry organizations in China has been largely fostered by this positive Canadian forestry reputation. This is something we do not want to lose and cannot afford to lose.

While there are differences in the processes used in each province and territory to monitor and regulate forest activities, certain similarities are uniquely Canadian. Electronic data and analytical methods, for example, are fundamental components of forest management in Canada. Unlike many other forest nations, the management of Canada's forests is based on forest inventories created primarily through the use of digital aerial photography. These forest inventories are the principal data sets used in computer models to project changes in the structure and composition of forests due to harvesting, regeneration, growth, and mortality caused by aging, natural, and human-caused disturbances. These usages of interpreted data and virtual forest computer models are beneficial, as they enable us to efficiently test and compare a variety of different harvest regimes and regeneration scenarios over very large land masses. However, we must recognize their limitations, as well as our need, ability, and obligation to use new science tools and technologies to improve the quality of this derived data and to ensure both it and the rules used in sophisticated electronic tools are verified in the real world.

This again presents an opportunity to train young forest professionals and practitioners in remote communities to develop, produce, and use enhanced forest and natural resources inventories and the associated technologies.

Currently, the human resources capacity across Canada is quite limited in terms of forest inventory production, while the need for up-to-date, high-quality, enhanced, and accurate inventories has never been stronger, especially if we want to be competitive within the global forest products sector. Addressing this need proactively through training could create high-tech employment opportunities in numerous communities where forestry is a primary or sole employer.

Advances in remote sensing technology, including the use of multi-spectral digital imagery and LIDAR technology, must soon become a pervasive part of the tool kit that significantly improves forest and natural resources inventories, improves our competitive advantage, and allows for overall improvement in forest management planning and practice.

Creating a desired future forest condition requires investment in information, planning, implementation, monitoring, and research. Remote rural communities would not only benefit directly, as described, but could also potentially see a benefit in a new and more focused type of ecotourism that includes visits to and interpretation of forest science and research and development installations and sites. From our experience, public interest is considerable with respect to learning about modern forestry and interdisciplinary forest science.

The bioenergy sector, which is developing rapidly around the globe in response to a need to reduce the use of fossil fuels, also creates opportunities for remote rural communities. As a forest nation, Canada has the potential to become one of the world's largest producers of forest biofuels and bioenergy.

While the use of residual biomass from existing forest products processing is beginning to see use in energy production in some centres, many remote communities also have the opportunity and potential to become more self-sufficient in terms of their own energy requirements through the use of biomass or bioenergy, if provided with incentives and some measure of initial investment. Billions of dollars have been spent in Canada to foster bioenergy in general, and tens of millions of dollars have been committed by governments to develop bioenergy networks to foster establishment of conversion plants. Remote communities should be seeing some share of this type of investment funding, especially when considering that the proximity of available forest biomass should allow for reduced transportation costs.

The task of ensuring the sustainability of the forest resource while extracting more biomass has not received as much attention from government agencies and networks, even though this is needed to underpin a sustainable bioenergy sector. It is therefore imperative that emerging forest bioenergy guidelines, regulations, policies, and legislation covering increased removals of forest biomass be built on a solid knowledge of environmental sustainability, be relevant within the context of current and anticipated forest operations in different jurisdictions across Canada, and be consistent in principle within a global context. Enhanced forest and natural resources inventories, as already discussed, play a vital role in this respect.

Youth internship programs that provide opportunities for recent graduates to gain experience, knowledge, and a network of personal contacts are an excellent vehicle and should see expanded use across Canada, especially in remote rural communities. Our institute partners and affiliates have achieved significant success with these programs over the past decade, providing a year-long experience to over 40 young people, most of whom have succeeded in establishing good careers in government, industry, and other non-profits upon completion of their internships.

FedNor, Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation have been our main funding agencies, and we recommend that the internship programs they offer be thoughtfully and strategically expanded to meet the challenges of remote communities, ideally within the context of our other recommendations. Given our own structure of 18 sections across Canada, with many of our members living and working in remote rural communities, we would like to offer our experience and expertise to help expand the scope, scale, and impact of youth internship programs.

On a personal note, I was recently a part of a Canadian delegation that visited China. At the Asia-Pacific forestry week conference in Beijing, we had the opportunity to meet many young people from different countries and heard first-hand how Asia-Pacific nations are currently ramping up educational opportunities for young people with respect to forestry and forests. We also heard from these young people their adamant belief that forestry was a future growth industry. One young Chinese forester said that in the past a young man would not apply to post-secondary forestry programs, as he would not make enough money to get a girlfriend. He said that this had changed, that forests and forestry were now seen as playing a major role in our environment and also for manufacturing, through the sustainable use of wood products and bioenergy. Many of these young forest professionals and practitioners in the Asia-Pacific region are coming from relatively remote rural communities themselves.

In conclusion, on behalf of our members, I again thank the committee. Our organizations feel that forests are a treasure and that forestry is not just a job but a passion. And...yes, the rest of it we can skip.

The Construction Sector Council is a not-for-profit national organization that is led by industry and funded by the federal government. Our mandate is to identify and address the workforce challenges facing the construction industry across Canada.

The construction industry in Canada is once again in a period of growth following the recent downturn in the economy. This growth in construction investment will translate into growth in employment over the next decade. The Construction Sector Council's labour market information estimates that increased construction activity is going to result in employment growth of about 102,000 jobs across the 2011-19 period.

Added to this expansion in growth is the aging population. Our labour market analysis has estimated there will be a potential loss of 217,000 skilled workers to retirement over the next decade. So if we take a look at those two numbers--217,000 and 102,000--we have an issue of about 319,000 skilled workers that we're going to require over the next decade. Typically, all industries receive a certain portion of new entrants who come into the workforce every year, and construction will receive its share. This still is going to leave us, though, with a gap of about 158,000 workers over this next decade.

Major industrial and engineering projects are driving this new construction investment across Canada. Most of these projects are located in rural and remote areas, and securing the needed labour requirements will be a challenge. Investment in proposed major projects in rural or remote areas is expected to reach close to $200 billion over the decade.

In British Columbia, new mining, pipeline, port expansion, and hydroelectric projects in northern B.C. will drive growth over the next several years. Labour demands associated--

Labour demands associated with that Alberta oil sands are well documented. Increased mining activity in Saskatchewan will mean a considerable demand for construction workers over the next few years. For Manitoba, there are multi-billion dollar hydro projects, while in northern Ontario there are the Ring of Fire mining developments, all of which will generate many job opportunities. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Lower Churchill hydro project and proposed mining project development will likely generate demands that exceed the available local labour force.

The labour requirement for these projects will be substantial and raises the challenge of recruiting and retaining required workers. Based on this data, the industry will need to use all measures to meet its needs. Programs that support hiring and retention of youth, aboriginal people, women, immigrants, and older workers will be critical.

Today I'm going to focus my comments on aboriginal people in rural and remote areas, although some of my comments will apply to anyone living in these areas.

In many instances, aboriginal people populate the areas in and around major construction projects in rural and remote areas. The construction industry has identified the engagement of aboriginal youth as a priority. Most recently, the owner community--the people who purchase construction services--has developed a strategy to address workforce challenges. In this strategy, engaging the aboriginal community has been identified as key a priority. The strategy states:

The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing in Canada, nearly 50 percent of which is below the age of 25. This represents a significant pool of largely untapped labour. To maximize this resource, relevant stakeholders (industry, governments, Aboriginal leaders, community leaders, educators and trainers) at the regional level need to accommodate cultural differences and identify training needs. These activities must include cultural awareness training about the industry for Aboriginal youth and greater awareness of the Aboriginal cultures among the industry's workforce.

Programs to promote training and employment in the skilled trades are needed before high school to encourage Aboriginal youth to consider these trades as a viable option. Job location can present [some] challenges. Industry cannot wait for major projects to drive demand for this source of labour. It must be proactive in Aboriginal schools and in the community to attract Aboriginal youth and prepare them for work before new major projects begin.

The Construction Sector Council has worked with the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy agreement holders over the past six years to forge linkages between aboriginal communities and the construction industry. The 80 ASET agreement holders have close to 400 points of service across Canada, are a direct link to aboriginal youth, and provide training and counselling—among other services—in their communities.

Through this work, we have learned a few lessons about working with aboriginal people in the area of skills development and employment for the construction industry. Some of those lessons learned are as follows.

First, connecting employers to the ASET agreement holders is an efficient way to forge linkages to find, train, and employ aboriginal youth.

Second, on-the-ground relationships at the local level are critical to creating successful employment and training models. This again includes the same group: owners, employers, labour, training providers, apprenticeship offices, ASET agreement holders, and government.

Third, it takes time to forge the relationships necessary to build trust and create change.

Fourth, skills training needs to be directly connected to employment. Ideally, this needs to happen while on the job, so there has to be a context for the training that's made available.

Fifth, in addition to job-specific skills training, there also needs to be training available to address basic employment skills, that is, the essential skills of every worker, in order for people to succeed in the workforce and to be able to benefit from training.

Sixth, on-the-job training needs to be built into construction contracting agreements, labour agreements, and other types of agreements.

Seventh, we need a long-term strategy that will raise awareness of employment opportunities, as well as short-term strategies that result in employment supported by training.

Eighth, there needs to be an appreciation of the time it takes to create a tradesperson. It takes a minimum of three to five years to create a skilled tradesperson.

Ninth, there must be an identified industry need, and employers need to be connected from the beginning to any initiatives that take place.

Tenth, there has to be collaboration amongst partners at all stages of any initiative—the planning, development, and operationalization stages.

Eleventh, job coaching and support for the employer and the employee are critical to retention.

Last, cross-cultural training of employers and aboriginal workers is critical.

There are some unique challenges when we're talking about remote and rural areas. Specialized training is often not available in those areas. Those living in these areas need to travel or relocate to access training. There are often difficulties with people not wanting to leave their communities to go to job sites or attend training. These difficulties are both practical, in terms of finances and accommodation, and personal, in terms of leaving the support of your community.

There are examples of successful cases of long-distance apprenticeship programs in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. More people could benefit from this type of flexible and long-distance learning to bring training to the remote and rural communities. Anecdotally, it appears that the longer the period of time an individual has to be away from his or her community to take training, the less likely they are to complete that training.

Another challenge is the cultural shock that can be experienced on the job site. This, along with the isolation from family and friends, can impact the retention of aboriginal people. Employment and training opportunities that have more than one aboriginal person in attendance help to address the isolation issue. Cultural awareness training helps to provide an understanding of the workplace culture and helps employers understand the culture of aboriginal people.

In conclusion, let me just say that remote and rural areas present unique challenges related to skills development and employment. There are many major construction projects taking place in these areas across Canada. Construction employers need either to access local workers or to bring in workers from other areas.

These major projects run for a finite period of time and then, in many cases, leave behind opportunities for maintaining those structures that have been built. So we need to think about skills development that not only enables the people who live in remote areas to participate in the construction of those buildings and structures, etc., but that also gives them the skills needed to maintain them afterwards.

Bev BuckwayBoard Member, Mayor, City of Whitehorse, Yukon, Chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Northern and Remote Forum, Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Mr. Chair, and committee members, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Northern Remote Forum.

The FCM is the voice of nearly 2,000 municipal members, representing approximately 90% of Canada's population. Rural and remote communities make up the majority of our members and are on the front lines of remote economic development, creating conditions to attract business and labour.

As the FCM pointed out in its 2010 report, On the Front Lines, infrastructure, particularly transportation infrastructure, is vital to lasting and diversified economic development in our remote communities. For businesses, good roads, rail systems, and airports mean that their products and process inputs can move in and out of communities more easily. Particularly in the northern context, it will be critical for this infrastructure to be climate resilient as we experience the impacts of climate change.

Reliable power supply and communications infrastructure are also important for business. I can speak first-hand to this vulnerability. This past summer, the city of Whitehorse, as well as communities in remote parts of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, lost access to all phone, Internet, cellular, and data services for almost half a day when a fibre optic cable was accidentally cut during construction in northern B.C. There were no cellphones, no ATMs, and no telephones. You couldn't gas up your car and use a card lock. Everything was shut down. That was the second time this has happened.

On the energy side, a majority of remote communities are cut off from the North American power grid. In some communities, this means total reliance on diesel for heat and/or electricity. This is a very unsustainable model that exposes our citizens--and the employers, of course--to high costs and a significant risk of a system failure, with very few alternatives.

The federal government has just committed to working with the provinces, the territories, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to develop a long-term infrastructure plan to replace the Building Canada fund when it expires in 2014. That was announced by Minister Lebel just yesterday. This plan will be a critical step forward for remote communities and will literally lay a foundation for other important economic development work.

Erin HoganBoard Member, Councillor, City of Thompson, Manitoba, Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Thank you, Mayor Buckway.

As remote local governments across Canada can attest, economic development also requires conditions that attract and retain people with the needed knowledge and skills. On average, 84.6% of Canadians have access to a regular doctor, compared to 77.8% in the Yukon, 38.7% in the Northwest Territories, and 11.8% in Nunavut. Access to quality education is often limited in remote communities. Often many young people must leave their communities for higher education, and sometimes even for secondary education.

Finally, in many remote communities there is inadequate housing, with as many as twenty people living in one cramped home. This has led many employers to construct their own dormitory housing for workers. The net effect is twofold: First, businesses in remote communities often require skills the local residents do not have, causing local residents to lose out on the direct benefits of new opportunities; and second, living conditions are such that workers may not want to raise their families in remote communities, resulting in high turnover, workforce instability, and loss of corporate memory. This is bad for business, bad for communities, and particularly bad for Canada's north, where many new opportunities exist.

Many remote communities’ economies are resource-driven and face unique challenges in planning for diversification. Last year, in my own city of Thompson, Manitoba, we received news that our largest employer, a mining company, was scheduled to close its smelting and refining operations there by 2015. Our community faced the prospect of losing 500 jobs in a community of 15,000, a sudden and significant loss of property value and, ultimately, unpredictability as to our community’s sustainability.

Fortunately, we have risen to the challenge and, led by the municipality, Thompson has formed an economic diversification working group. The working group brings together stakeholders from all sectors, including the mining company and aboriginal organizations, to build a new future for Thompson.

We have done this on our own, but communities like Thompson and future resource-based communities could do more in partnership with the federal government. The federal government needs a strategy for partnership with resource-based communities to support economic diversification. It has an important role to play in supporting local efforts to attract new business, such as investments in core infrastructure, business development grants and tax incentives, education and skills training, and finally, capacity-building tools, particularly to assess diversification options in a given community.

It's obvious that what we're been hearing over and over again, not only at this committee but also at other committees, is the need to ensure there is proper support for first nations. You talked about 20 people living in a home. This is exactly what we're seeing in Attawapiskat as well. We have to realize that the amount of money that's actually being invested in an ordinary Canadian is almost $20,000 per person per year, compared to just $8,000 in Attawapiskat per person per year. We have to realize there is a deficiency there.

There was a lot of information given here and I'm struggling as to which questions I really should ask, but I think that even in difficult times savings cannot be achieved on the backs of our first people. Given the skilled-labour shortage, it is imperative that we recognize the potential of our first nation youth. As you indicated, the longer they're away from the community, the less likely they are to complete. That's why we have first nations communities in some areas that are really trying to bind together, to make sure that places like KTEI are able to try to deliver some courses. But, again, they can only deliver a limited amount of courses because they just don't have the infrastructure and the capacity to expand at this point.

Mr. Pineau, you talked about the forestry industry. I have lots of forest-industry communities in my area. I'm in northern Ontario, and I know how difficult it's been for Dubreuilville, for White River, for all of those communities who have had this shock of losing their single-industry town.

When you talked about the internship, it reminded me that some of my communities, since I've been elected, have been asking for a longer internship program. Even the Chamber of Commerce talked about this in their report here:

Federal programs need to be flexible enough to accommodate the economic realities of individual communities and the alternate training models that may be required to deliver effective results.

On the internship programs, if they're only for a year, that person leaves and another one comes in, and it's a totally different program because they're not sure exactly what the other one had in mind.

So I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.

There are a lot of challenges in that respect. For me--and I'll be honest--it's a source of talented, young, energetic, inexpensive labour. I can get a lot done for our organizations that way, and I won't hide that.

The year-long duration is tough. You just get someone up to speed and they know what they're doing really well, and they're ready to go out. And I don't blame them, because they can usually get a good job, and a lot of them have, and they can be paid well and they can move somewhere, to a bigger centre or wherever. That is an issue.